Protesters demand US 'ghost ships' vanish from shores

Onlookers line the beach as the decrepit former US Navy oil tanker Caloosahatchee docks near the northern English port of Hartlepool.
Photo: Reuters

The first of 13 US ships due to be scrapped in Britain sailed into port to cries of protest from environmentalists who have won a first round in a campaign to stop their dismantling.

They say the ships, built with asbestos and possibly containing traces of other chemicals, are toxic and poisonous.

The Government says that is going too far but has suspended permission for scrapping, a decision now under appeal.

The decrepit former US Navy oil tanker Caloosahatchee was the first of the so-called "ghost ships" - a fleet of ancient vessels dating back as far as World War II - to arrive in the northern English port of Hartlepool on Wednesday. "We don't want these ships in the UK," said Mike Childs, British campaigns director for environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth. "America has the capacity to deal with its own waste and the moral obligation to do so," he said.

About 100 protesters greeted the Caloosahatchee with placards reading: "Hartlepool is my home not America's dustbin" and "No more toxic crap, send the Ghost Ships back".

The empty ships are due to be scrapped by a British firm under a contract worth £10 million ($A23 million).

But as the rusty grey tanker pulled into dock on the Tees River - in the shadow of a nuclear power plant and towering smokestacks at chemical plants billowing white smoke - some locals said the fuss was over nothing. "These ships have ended their useful life and we need the work in this area," said carpenter Eddie Moir, 59. "That's all there is to it. We're living in one of the biggest chemical complexes in Europe and this won't make any difference," he said.